National Nonsense!

As you can imagine, the newspapers are full of what they can do about making the Grand National safer.  One of the problems I see is that despite watering,  the ground was very quick and in turn the horses tended to go quicker on it.  Personally I am not one for artificially altering the going with water - I think that the winning horse should be the one that handles the prevailing conditions best on the day...I am not advocating horses running on road-like ground, but there are some horses out there that like faster ground.

The fences have been made smaller over the years in an attempt to increase safety, but as I see it, the horse is going to be faster over a smaller fence than a larger one (seems like common sense to me!).  So how do you make it safer?  I guess you either make the fences slightly larger again or over-water the ground...or maybe the race is about as safe as it can be made without it being completely sterilised and just like any other contest.  Aintree do an excellent job and I do not think that they deserve the criticism they have received - if these critics had their way the horses would have air bags fitted into their bridle, and the jockeys would carry a parachute!

Talking of critics, I see that John McCririck is on about banning the stick again.  John makes his living from racing and yet he does very little to promote the sport - if jockey's weren't allowed to carry whips, there are certain horses that would never win a race - what are you supposed to do with all those...put them down?  Personally I don't think Big Mac does jump racing any favours and I think the sooner he is pulled off the coverage, the better.

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There is a nice picture of grand old warrior Bonanza Boy in today's Racing Post.  Bonanza sadly passed away on Sunday at the age of thirty.  The picture shows him being led into the winner's enclosure by George and Angie Malde after he won the Racing Post Chase at Kempton in 1989.  I couldn't help but notice how young I looked in the picture - Angie still looks the same as she did back then, but George needs some Grecian 2000 on his hair these days!  Someone once asked me how good Bonanza Boy was - I told them that David Pipe won on him, the reply came back, "he was that good?!".

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There is a picture of Leonna Mayor in today's paper - she rides Thoughtsofstardom in the 4.00pm at Folkestone.  No disrespect to the likes of Scu or AP, but I don't remember ever putting up a jockey that looked like her!